ANDREA JAFFE

JAFFE--Andrea.

Influential Hollywood Publicist, Dies at 66. Andrea Jaffe, a member of one of Hollywood's legendary dynasties who established herself as a prominent publicist in the 1980s, died Wednesday in Wilmington, NC, following a lengthy illness. Andrea Jaffe became a force as she handled publicity for Tom Cruise as he vaulted to stardom with 1983's Risky Business. Her client list also included such stars as Richard Gere, Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Farrah Fawcett, Bette Midler and Sissy Spacek and directors like Michael Apted and Oliver Stone, who thanked her from the stage when he won his directing Oscar for 1986's Platoon. Other films she promoted included Rain Man, The Grifters, The Doors and JFK, and companies she repped included Jaffe/Lansing Productions and Largo Entertainment. A 1991 Los Angeles magazine article dubbed her one of Hollywood's "Flacks Fatales." Jaffe began her career as an assistant at Rogers & Cowan and went on to work for such firms as M/S Billings Publicity and ICPR before becoming a VP at PMK, where Pat Kingsley, another legendary publicist, was a partner. In 1986, she founded her own firm, Andrea Jaffe & Associates, which she led until 1991, when she closed it upon taking a studio job as president of marketing at 20th Century Fox, where she oversaw advertising, publicity and promotion for three years. Jaffe subsequently served as an independent marketing consultant for a number of motion pictures and producers and devoted her time to nonprofit organizations, including Save the Children. She is survived by brothers Stanley and wife Melinda, Ira and wife Sonda, Howard, sister Marcia and husband Gene. She is also survived by her adoring nieces and nephews: Betsy, Bobby, Alexander, Katie, Wendy, Eric, Lea, Todd and Dana. Andrea fought her illness with great courage and dignity, and will always be remembered for her great wit, sense of humor...and for truly embodying what it meant to be "Cool". Donations in her name may be made to the Save the Children Foundation.